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Updated: Jun 12, 2026

Microparticle Manipulation by Standing Surface Acoustic Waves with Dual-frequency Excitations
Published on: August 21, 2018
Reconfigurable acoustic coding metasurface for bidirectional wavefront manipulation across the water-air interface
Yan-Long Du1, Hong-Tao Zhou1, Chen-Yang Li1
1Department of Mechanics, School of Mechanical Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300350, China.
Abstract:
Bidirectional high-efficiency sound control across the water-air interface is essential for cross-medium communication and remote sensing. However, conventional quarter-wavelength impedance matching imposes a strong trade-off between transmission efficiency and phase tunability, limiting flexible control in both directions. Here, we propose a reconfigurable acoustic coding metasurface that enables efficient bidirectional wavefront manipulation within a single-layer architecture. Discrete solid units with vibro-acoustic coupling harness sidewall flexural vibrations, facilitating effective velocity transfer between water and air. This underlying mechanism overcomes the conventional constraint, enabling simultaneous high transmission and phase modulation. Through mechanical reconfiguration of the coding units, the metasurface supports flexible switching among various acoustic functions, such as focusing, beam splitting, and Airy-beam generation, for both propagation directions. Full-wave simulations and experimental results validate its versatility and reconfigurability. This work opens new possibilities for compact, programmable platforms in intelligent cross-domain acoustic communication and adaptive sensing.
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